A select number of politicians with a shiny Senate seat on their minds want their constituents to know that Ebola and the Islamic State are coming for them, and that people should be very afraid. But before voters lock themselves inside and board up their homes, those politicians would like constituents to please cast ballots for them in next months' midterm elections.

Fear of Ebola and fear of ISIS are two topics that candidates across the country have tried to capitalize on before elections on Nov. 4, and plenty of them have spewed baseless jargon at potential voters in an effort to scare them all the way to the polls.

Below, we've rounded up some of the more ridiculous quotes and briefly explained why you shouldn't listen to them.

Rep. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina)

North Carolina Senate candidate Thom Tillis listens during a national security roundtable at the Wayne County Veterans Services in Goldsboro, N.C., on Oct. 16.

Image: Gerry Broome/Associated Press

Tillis is challenging North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan for her seat, and has tried to bolster the idea that people infected with Ebola could wander across America's southern border, something he feels the Democrat has not addressed.

"Sen. Hagan has failed the people of North Carolina and the nation by not securing our border," Tillis said during an Oct. 7 debate with Hagan. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors who can come across the border. We need to seal the border and secure it."

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas)

In this file photo taken on July 26, U.S. Rep. and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Cotton speaks at a campaign event in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Image: Danny Johnston/Associated Press

Cotton, who is running for Senate in Arkansas, pulled the same trick as Tillis, but substituted Ebola with ISIS.

"Groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism," Cotton said at a recent town hall-style gathering. “They could infiltrate our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas. This is an urgent problem and it’s time we got serious about it, and I’ll be serious about it in the United States Senate.”

The notion that ISIS could pour in through Mexico sounds scary enough to turn into a Halloween costume, but it has been refuted multiple times by U.S. officials who say there is "no credible intelligence" of such a plot.

Scott Brown (R-New Hampshire)

New Hampshire Senate hopeful Scott Brown talks to supporters after announcing his plans to run for Senate in New Hampshire, in Portsmouth, on April 10.

Image: Jim Cole/Associated Press

Scott Brown is running for Senate in New Hampshire, and despite being based in a state all the way up north, he, too, has made it a priority to talk about Ebola crossing the country's southern border.

“My concern is with our unprotected border where people with Ebola and other infectious diseases can enter the country without being challenged," Brown said in statement in early October.

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado)

Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner fashions a response during a debate with incumbent U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado., at The Denver Post in Denver on Oct. 7.

Image: David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Gardner wants Democratic Sen. Mark Udall's spot in the Senate, and he's not afraid to refute expert opinion on Ebola containment to get it.

Gardner got a chance on Oct. 16 to question Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and he took the opportunity to call for a travel ban on flights coming to the U.S. from countries in West Africa where Ebola has been found, lashing out at those who have said a travel ban would make it more difficult to track Ebola patients.

"Their reasons today are basically the same thing as saying that all children with chicken pox stay in school so we know who they are," Gardner said. "It simply makes no sense. We must make sure we are protecting the American people by making sure that travel from the affected area is restricted."

But banning travel from West African nations that are dealing with Ebola will not prevent infected patients from coming to the U.S. They could simply take a flight from a different nation that is not under an international spotlight, meaning they are less likely to be identified as a carrier of the disease.

Plus, nations have tried travel bans in the past in an effort to fight the spread of diseases such as SARS, and they have failed to have any impact.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana)

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana., talks to the media after her debate with Senate candidate Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana., and Republican candidate Rob Maness at Centenary College in Shreveport on Oct. 14.

Image: Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

The bad ideas aren't limited to Republicans. Landrieu, who is running for reelection in Louisiana, recently called for increased screening at airports.

"I urge the administration to expand the current screenings from five to all 20 airports in the United States where tourists, international workers and business leaders from West Africa arrive."

Such an idea may seem reasonable, but screening for disease at airports has proven to be just about worthless. Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled to Dallas, Texas and later died after being infected with Ebola in Liberia, was screened before his departure, but officials weren't able to identify him as someone carrying the disease.

After the global SARS outbreak in 2003, a study conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada showed that airport screening was measurably ineffective at identifying people infected with SARS, and called into question whether money and human resources should be used to screen airplane passengers.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, presses Attorney General Eric Holder for answers about what investigators knew about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the Justice Department, on May 15, 2013.

Image: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Gohmert stands out on this list as the only politician who is not running for a spot in the Senate (he's trying to get reelected to Congress). Gohmert has tried to use fear of Ebola and ISIS to bash efforts to combat climate change.

Mocking President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, he went on Newsmax on Oct. 8 and wondered why "this president and this secretary of state also think that...more deadly to this country than Ebola is climate change, more deadly than the Islamic State to Thomas Foley is climate change."

First, the mention of someone named "Thomas Foley" is, we're assuming, a reference to journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by an ISIS militant this past August.

Second, Gohmert was likely referencing Obama's speech at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York this past September, where he said climate change is a threat that will “define the contours of this century more than any other.” He never mentioned Foley, and his speech talked about how climate change is an enduring peril, one that is likely to outlast the problems that Ebola and ISIS are causing today.

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